‘Tell me about your family.’ She changed the subject, moving to neutral territory. ‘You never talk about them.’ Not, she thought guiltily, that she had volunteered any information about hers. She shuddered to think what he would make of her eccentric, hippy parents with their allotment, their crystal-and-gem shop and their free-spirited liberalism. Not that he had asked. She was curious about him but the curiosity was obviously not mutual.
‘There’s nothing extraordinary to recount,’ Niccolo returned mildly. ‘I have three sisters and a mother.’
‘That’s why you’re so comfortable in the company of women,’ Ellie mused. ‘I’ve seen the way you chat to all the women at the resort, from your staff to the guests. You have a talent for putting them at ease.’
‘I had no idea you were analysing me,’ Niccolo drawled. He looked at her, his expression suddenly closed and thoughtful. ‘That could be a dangerous pastime.’
‘Why?’
‘Any woman who sees me as a project is destined to failure. What you see, Ellie, is what you get. Good sex.’ His sensual mouth curved into a smile of satisfaction. ‘Very good sex.’
Ellie reddened. Message received loud and clear, she thought. ‘I wasn’t analysing you,’ she told him lightly. ‘That’s your ego talking, Niccolo. I was just expressing curiosity. Believe it or not, a bit of curiosity about the man you’re sleeping with really isn’t that unusual. I certainly don’t see you as a project.’ She laughed and looked away, squinting at the impossibly blue ocean in which their little boat was an insignificant splinter of glue and wood. A puff of wind and the rise of a wave, and the splinter of wood would be gone, just like that. ‘The only man I will ever see as a project will be the man I want to settle down with.
‘Spotted any suitable candidates at the resort?’ Niccolo kept his voice light. He’d noticed a couple of the guests looking at her. The sun and the sea, not to mention the hot sex, had turned the nine-to-five working girl into a sun-kissed, sexy little number. Her brown hair had gone curly in the heat and the scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose made her look years younger.
‘How could I?’ Ellie laughed, relaxing as the boat chugged its way further and further out into the wide blue yonder. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be the love of my life?’
‘Is that the charade we’re pulling off?’ Niccolo wasn’t looking at her as he said this. ‘I thought we were a little more casual than that.’
Ellie kept smiling. Her jaw ached from the effort. ‘At any rate, if I’m supposed to only have eyes for you, isn’t it going to look a little fishy if they’re checking out the guests?’
‘You’re telling me that you haven’t seen any potential soul-mate candidates? There are some very eligible guys here.’
‘Are you encouraging me to have a look?’ Ellie asked lightly, stung, even though she didn’t know why she should be because he was just being honest with her. ‘What would you do if someone took my fancy?’
‘You’re a free agent.’ Niccolo shrugged. ‘What could I do?’
He was unsettled by the flare of raw jealousy that ripped through him when he thought about her sizing up one of the men at the hotel. They were all decent guys, and she deserved a decent guy, but he still didn’t like the thought of her finding someone she wanted to play footsie with under the table before taking him home to her mother.
He didn’t do jealousy. In fact, it was an emotion that left him cold, and he shifted uncomfortably, relieved that his destination was within sight. He slowed the engine.
‘Well, I haven’t, not that the men I’ve chatted to haven’t been lovely guys. I actually feel sorry for a couple of them. They may have stacks of money, but they don’t seem to have an awful lot of confidence when it comes to the opposite sex, which is why they’re still single I expect. They all have stories to tell. I hadn’t expected stories. I was wrong about that. They could use a few lessons from you when it comes to confidence with the opposite sex.’
‘I don’t think I’d be the right example,’ Niccolo said wryly. They had arrived at a vast, shallow pool in the middle of the ocean, where the extraordinary formation of coral had created an oasis of warm, calm water that glittered with rainbow-coloured fish visible from the boat.
‘Why not?’ Ellie murmured absently, leaning over the side of the boat, captivated by the spectacle. The sun was very hot, beating down on her shoulders. She had worn a loose tee shirt, something she had picked up from the well-stocked gift shop at the hotel, and a pair of linen shorts and she itched to remove both so that she could get down to her bikini.
Both hands resting on the side of the boat as she peered into the clear, calm water, trying to play ‘spot the fish’, she felt the boat dip then the feel of Niccolo’s arms looped round her waist. Instinctively, she straightened with a sigh of pleasure, twisting round so that she was looking up at him.
Niccolo flicked off his sunglasses and their eyes tangled. ‘Because,’ he murmured, confusing her for a few seconds, because he was picking up on the observation she had forgotten making, ‘I may know how to talk to the opposite sex, but the men here aren’t looking for ways of making successful small talk. They’re looking at ways of connecting on a slightly more permanent basis and, when it comes to that, I’m no good on the advice front.’
‘Is this your way of warning me off?’ Ellie didn’t look away.
‘Do you need warning off?’
‘Of course I don’t. I know what this is about. You don’t have to worry that, because I joked about the guests at the hotel thinking that we’re in love, I meant it. You asked me if I’d seen anyone here I could picture myself being with and, if I were to answer you seriously, then I would tell you that I haven’t. The men here are nice, and they certainly don’t fit the mould when it comes to what I’d imagined, but they’re not for me.’
‘Not young enough?’
‘I’m not ageist, Niccolo. I just don’t go for the whole money thing. It’s not how I was brought up. This thing between us... Well, it’s fun and it’s really made me look at my choices in a different light—and for that I’ll always thank you—but you needn’t worry that I’m going to start confusing gratitude with anything else.’
‘You’re going to return to playing it safe now that you’ve had your walk on the wild side?’
‘That’s right,’ Ellie said lightly.
‘I expect Mummy and Daddy will be pleased,’ Niccolo murmured, trying to picture what form safe came in. Glasses? Short back and sides? Shirt and tie, even when relaxing? He’d never been the safe sort in his entire life. You didn’t get to the top by playing safe and he’d wanted and needed to get to the top.
He’d had to. He’d had his path mapped out from he’d been young. He’d known his responsibilities—to make sure his mother and his sisters were taken care of. He’d given his word to his father as a child.
Niccolo frowned, because this was the first time he had thought about his father in a long time. Where had that come from?
Ellie grinned, keen to get away from the jagged edge to their conversation and to return to the easy, teasing familiarity they had developed over the past few days, almost communicating without words.
‘They’ll be bitterly disappointed,’ she told him, breaking her own personal vow to keep things light—and ‘light’ didn’t include confiding any more for her than for him. But she couldn’t help herself.
‘Really? Explain.’ Niccolo perched on the side of the boat which bobbed on the calm blue water. The only sound was of the sea lapping gently against the side of the boat.
He had undone the buttons of his shirt, which hung open, offering a tantalising glimpse of hard, bronzed skin with its speckling of dark hair. Without thinking, she stepped forward and rested the palm of her hand against his chest. Niccolo instantly took it and kissed the soft underside of her wrist, eyes fixed on her face as he teased the sensitive spot with the tip of his tongue.
‘You were saying?’ he encouraged. ‘Keep talking. Don’
t mind me.’
‘Give me back my hand and I’ll keep talking,’ Ellie said breathlessly.
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that. Now that I’ve captured it, you’re going to have to relinquish it for at least another fifteen minutes. Just long enough for you to tell me why your parents would be disappointed with the crashing bore you intend to bring home to them.’
Ellie laughed. They were back to normal. She could postpone the uncomfortable issues lurking on the edges of her consciousness and enjoy the moment.
‘I like routine because it’s something I never had,’ she confessed, closing the tiny distance between them and resting her head against his chest, which was hot from the sun. She glanced up at him with a faraway expression.
‘My parents didn’t lead a very ordinary life,’ she said with a touch of exasperated affection in her voice. ‘They liked to think of themselves as travellers, as in the hippy variety. Lots of moving from one country to another and getting wrapped up in all sorts of spiritual soul searching and Zen Buddhism. And lots of smoking pot and inviting fellow hippy travellers to stay wherever they happened to be. Or else, we stayed with them. It was always a muddle.’
She sneaked a glance to see whether there was disgust on his face, because her life couldn’t have been further from his, but he was looking at her with a guarded, non-judgemental expression.
‘You need to be rooted to one spot,’ Niccolo mused pensively. ‘You like knowing where you are and you don’t like change.’
‘Now who’s the one doing the analysing?’
Niccolo laughed with a touch of irony. Analysing women was something no one could ever accuse him of doing, but she was right.
‘But, yes, that’s about the size of it.’
‘Hence your taste in men. Most women would think it extraordinary to list boring as a desirable trait in a man, but you’re coming from a different place.’
‘Reliable doesn’t have to mean boring,’ Ellie protested, laughing.
Niccolo couldn’t see the joke. ‘But it usually does,’ he pointed out with cool logic. ‘Men who don’t take chances usually find their comfort zone in the slow lane.’
‘That’s not fair.’ She tugged free of him and stood back, eyes as cool as his, wondering how they had progressed from warmth to shade in such a short space of time. ‘You just don’t understand because you come from a completely different background to me.’ She was beginning to wish she hadn’t said anything. He had never asked for confidences and it was clear he didn’t welcome them.
‘Everyone has their story. You said you’d seen that with the clientele here. Not just a bunch of men and women looking for cheap thrills but living, breathing human beings searching for something they might or might not find. You think my background has somehow shaped me into being ambitious?’
‘More than just ambitious.’
‘I’ve had to be. You had your wandering parents who taught you what it was like to yearn for routine. I learned from childhood how lonely it could be trying to be a man when you haven’t even started shaving yet.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I was left in charge of my family, sworn to look after them, at an age when I could scarcely look after myself. I gave my word to my dying father and I said goodbye to my childhood the instant that oath left my lips.’ He was shocked at his confession. ‘And I have no idea why I just told you that. We were talking about safe men. What I should have said is that I’m a man, and I know what men are like, and safe men are dull. They’re the paper pushers without whom no business could function but they’re also the ones whose names are easily forgotten.’
‘A paper pusher would suit me fine.’ But there was no heat in her voice. She desperately wanted to ask him more about his childhood, to cling to that fleeting confidence and hold onto to it, but knowing that every shutter within him would drop if she were foolhardy enough to try and quiz him further. ‘Not everyone wants a dynamo!’
‘But dynamos are so good in bed,’ Niccolo murmured, his voice changing from cool to sexily husky. He pulled her towards him and kept holding her. He’d confided and that had been a mistake. This was what he should have done because it was what he was good at. Sex. Without giving her a chance to answer the unanswerable, he undid the button of her shorts, and then the zip, and he shoved them down in one easy motion. ‘And out of bed as well.’
‘Niccolo, we’re having a conversation.’
‘You’re missing the scenery.’
‘Where are we?’ Ellie reluctantly dumped the conversation, even though she felt as though she still had points to make about what he had said.
‘In the middle of the ocean. An anomaly here means that the water is very shallow and very, very warm. And full of marine life. It’s a bit like stepping into fish soup.’ He was talking and kissing her neck at the same time, and she squirmed, looking past his shoulder.
‘We can swim here?’
‘Of course we can. Why do you think I brought you? Swim and make love.’
‘Niccolo...’
‘Shh.’ He had moved her bikini bottoms to one side for access and his finger explored her lazily, thoroughly, with a teasing rhythm that made her gasp. ‘Take your top off,’ he commanded. ‘We’re shaded here. You should be safe from the sun.’
‘What if someone comes?’
‘Trust me, there will be ample advance warning. Outboard motors aren’t silent.’
It felt wickedly, wonderfully decadent to take all her clothes off out in the open, with the cool breeze taking the edge off the hot sun and with ocean all around them.
Niccolo groaned and cupped her breasts. He played with her nipples while the ache between her legs begged to be relieved. She touched herself as he continued to kiss her and knew that he was smiling at her abandon.
Very gently, he sat her on one of the smooth, worn wooden benches that ran the width of the boat. The craft was small but it was far from shabby. Propping herself upright on her hands, face upturned, mouth parted, eyes shut, she felt him nudge her legs apart, and then she melted as he began licking between them, taking his time, in no hurry at all.
The sound of his mouth against her matched the soft sound of the water lapping against the side of the craft. Ellie felt the muscles in her groin tighten, and she gasped sharply as waves of pleasure began building. She wanted him in her so badly but she wasn’t going to make it.
Her orgasm came with explosive force, her fingers curled into his hair, her body heaving and rocking until she was spent.
Then she watched as Niccolo removed his clothes, her sated body awakening all over again in record time. Out here, in the middle of the ocean, there was no concept of time. Maybe this was what eternity would feel like, Ellie thought dreamily. She wished she could bottle the feeling and then she would be able to hold on to it for ever...
* * *
It was dusk by the time they returned to the resort. The day had been wonderful. Ellie hadn’t wanted any of it to end. They had swum, made love and returned to the beach for a picnic tea, which she hadn’t even known he’d got the restaurant to prepare for them.
The hours had gone past in a haze of lazy contentment.
And that was what love felt like.
Ellie wasn’t going to fight it any longer nor was she going to try and pretend that it was something else.
An adventure...a learning curve...a daring experiment...lust...
When she’d told him that she was a virgin, he’d replied that she could trust him because he wouldn’t hurt her. She was going to be hurt but she knew that, given the chance, she would do it all over again.
She began opening her door as he killed the engine but he stayed her with one hand.
‘Enjoyed today? Even though you were wary of the surprise I had in store?’
She grinned. Night was falling and his face was in shadow. ‘It couldn’t have been better.’
‘Would a safe lover have taken you there, do you think? You might discover that if you seek out
safety you find a guy you end up scorning, because there’s no adventure without risk.’ Niccolo hadn’t planned to return to this conversation but something inside him drove him, like the ferocious urge to pick away at a scab.
‘Maybe you’re safer than you imagine,’ Ellie murmured. ‘Maybe we’re more alike than you think, both of us too cautious to really let go when it comes to relationships.’
Niccolo was uneasily aware that this was a conversation he had to pilot. ‘Which is why this has worked between us. Neither of us is inclined to be persuaded into thinking that there is anything more to what we have than sex. We’re both realistic and sharp enough to see the pitfalls.’
‘But I do believe in love,’ Ellie said with heartfelt sincerity.
It just doesn’t happen the way you sometimes plan it happening. It just sometimes ambushes you, and by the time you find out it’s too late to do anything about it.
‘You don’t. Even though you have this—a fantastic six-star resort designed for Cupid’s bows and arrows?’ There was genuine curiosity in her voice.
‘This was, first and foremost, a business proposition. Long story, but let’s just say that I was more than fifty percent certain that it had wings before I started laying the first brick.’
‘It’s all about business with you, isn’t it, Niccolo? What did she do to you?’
Niccolo looked at her narrowly. ‘Come again?’
‘Forget it.’
He should. Instead, to his astonishment, he said with acid bite, ‘I made one mistake many years ago. I misjudged a woman. The person I thought she was was a chimera, an illusion, smoke and mirrors. If ever there was a single event to focus my mind and remind me of my purpose in life, it’s that youthful mistake.’
And so his life, Ellie thought, had closed in for ever. The boy had become the man who had locked his emotions away and thrown away the key. She glanced at his lean, handsome face and was chilled to the bone. Yet something about his brooding, closed expression made her want to soothe him, and she fought the urge, dragging the conversation back to the present, pre-empting his retreat.
A Deal for Her Innocence Page 14